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Plenty of room with great airflow
12/04/2014

Pros: This case has a lot going for it. Good solid construction is present throughout: rubber grommets for cable management, good alignment of the mobo standoff screws to the external ports / slots, and plenty of inlet & outlet vents for good airflow.

There is an internal fan mount behind the hard drive bays, the top of which comes right to the second PCI slot (usually where the first PCI-E card is on most ATX motherboards). This means you can point a fan directly at your graphics card(s) for a better cooling loop. I can comfortably fit two 3-fan extended GTX 770 cards and still have clearance for the internal case fan. My cards haven't gone above 55 C under load.

Finally, speaking of fans, pretty much everything is filtered. The top, front, and bottom two (yep!) inlet fan mounts all have dust covers or filters. The attention to airflow in the design of this case is excellent.

Cons: There are a few nitpicks that I'm not wild about. First, there's an external fan speed controller, which is sort of a weird "feature" to have. I'd like it much better if they included a fan controller splitter/circuit for one of the motherboard fan connectors (which would be powered by the 12V rails, but controlled by the motherboard pins).

Also, the vent placement in the side panels can pretty much defeat the purpose of the front intake fans, so you may get better results closing them off somehow and directing airflow into the main part of the case.

Also, there's no option to screw-mount hard drives. I honestly don't know why case manufacturers require the use of their proprietary quick-mount bays. I like my drives mounted and grounded securely, and the quick-mount bays in this case have a fair bit of play in them.

Other Thoughts: At the typical sale price (50-60), it's a great deal. Very spacious, plenty of options for cooling and support for a wide variety of fan sizes, and quality construction throughout. Probably the most bang for the buck I've ever gotten from a computer case.

Great performance, very cool, very quiet
03/27/2014

Pros: After a week of use, this is absolutely the happiest I've been with a graphics card purchase. The card itself is well-built and feels sturdy. It's longer than it is deep, which is a very good thing since I've got a 120mm side-fan dedicated for GPU venting -- plenty of clearance inside the case. The 3 cooling fans are rated at 450 watts, but the card itself hasn't asked for more than 230; this means it stays VERY cool, even under load. I ran Titanfall at max settings for an extended session, and the GPU temp never broke 45c... that's absolutely marvelous. If all of that wasn't enough, it's a very quiet card as well. The stereotypical "whine" of high-RPM fans is not present here; instead, the 3 fans sound more like a dull "woosh"ing noise rather than a jet turbine.

All in all, a fantastic video card. The 4GB version is a nice bump from the 2GB version in a similar price band. If you can afford the incremental jump in price, get the 4GB card and future-proof your rig.

Cons: It's a long card -- this is a con only if you're trading length for depth. I had plenty of room in my full tower for the SSD, HDD, bay mounts, and this card fit just fine.

Because it's so long, there is a fair bit of flex in the PCI connector. Luckily, there's a little eye-hole on the far end of the metal housing of the card -- I just zip-tied this to the case and it doesn't sag anymore.

Other Thoughts: Don't underrun the card on power. It's rated to 450W, and factoring in 125W for the CPU and 25W for the fans, you're pushing 600 just for base requirements. My 650W bronze psu handles it fine, but I haven't overclocked anything yet. YMMV.